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Our Burning Bosom bloggers Andrew and Shawn now have a new home over at Mormon Matters. Our three other bloggers are taking a sabbatical. So what this means, folks, is that Burning Bosom is closing up shop. But Andrew and Shawn would love you to come join the conversation with us over at Mormon Matters, which has been getting up to 2,000 unique visitors each day.

So inquiring minds may want to know: how did Burning Bosom do during its three-and-a-half month ride? Better than we expected (then again, our expectations were low). We thought that our hard core cult following (ha ha), or anyone else who’s curious might be interested in these “blog stats:

In the scriptures, specifically Section 4 of the Doctrine and Covenants, we read that “the field is ripe already to harvest…” However, the experience of my own mission to France was, to put it lightly, quite the opposite… at least that’s how I felt at the time. It took a while after the mission to come to the realization that the field may have been ripe, but all that didn’t matter if the farmers stopped believing there is a crop (or didn’t work in the field to try and make it grow).

The beginning of this realization came a little more than a year into my mission. My zone leader invited me to a bishopric council meeting which he attended monthly. As happened every time missionaries were in attendance the missionaries were asked if we had any investigators, and where they were in the discussions.

The last straw for me happened during Bishopric’s council. The zone leader at the time invited me to attend with him that week since I was in town for the meeting (I was in a separate town where we met in a small room for “independent Sunday School” with only about 10 members in the town). The bishop asked if we had any investigators coming to church that week. Before we could answer, the Relief Society President at the time sarcastically blurted out, “Ha, yeah elders, do you have anyone coming EVER?” She laughed as she said it, and it made me furious with to see her lack of faith in our ability to succeed. Read the rest of this entry »

After a year off, the Easter Bunny is scheduled to make a return visit to our home this weekend. My wife and I, parents of three young daughters, have been mulling over this decision for the past few weeks and, quite honestly, it may change in the next 48 hours. Last year, we decided we were giving up the Easter Bunny altogether on the notion that it unnecessarily drew attention away from the more sacred aspects of the holiday. Not a bad idea in principle, right? Well . . .

This weekend, I (along with my co-blogger, Andrew) attended my first Sunstone Symposium this past weekend in Claremont, California. You’ll note from its title that this post does not aspire to be a comprehensive report of the weekend’s events. But, in hopes of disabusing people of the same sorts of prejudices I held for so long (as explained below), let me share with you a few thoughts about my experience.

Sorry to break from the norm, but I got this from my mom and thought this forum would enjoy it (and who doesn’t enjoy a laugh on Mondays!). Disclaimer, I don’t know if it’s a true story. It probably isn’t. It’s meant to put a smile on your face as you start your week. After you read the story, I’ve included some thoughts and pointers that help me get the most out of my Sunday worship at church.

One of things I loved about Church as a kid was going to ward fundraisers. My motives, of course, were far from altruistic. We had a guy in our ward who owned a 7-Eleven franchise, so he always brought boxes of candy and Slurpee coupons for auction. After 2 hours of relentless nagging from their pack of wild kids, my folks inevitably would give in and we would go home with weeks worth of Butterfingers, along with all sorts of other trinkets we didn’t really need. These events were always great fun and served to rally us together around a specific goal, be it the youth program, a new chapel or the construction of a local temple.

It’s been nearly two decades now since I attended such an event. Indeed, it was my understanding that the Church prohibited ward-sponsored fundraisers when it lifted the rule requiring congregations to raise their own budgets. Apparently, I was wrong because, last night, our ward held its first annual Ward Auction to raise money for this year’s iterations of Scout Camp and Girls’ Camp. I am happy to report it was rousing success.

As a young missionary in the MTC, I expended a lot of energy worrying about the relative strength of my testimony. I was raised in the Church, my whole family (at that time, at least) was fully active, and I was excited finally to be heading out to Guatemala to serve. But I was troubled because I felt as though something was missing. For me, the issue was not whether I had a testimony, but whether it was sufficiently buttressed with spiritual experiences. Hoping to see tangible fruit borne of Moroni’s promise, I nightly prayed fervently for a sign — something physical, something remarkable — to cement my testimony, to give me the ability to state, without hesitation, that “I know the Book of Mormon is true.” I honestly believed that, if I prayed hard enough, it was simply a matter of time. I knelt in the dark for long periods after I had finished, just waiting.

And after nine weeks of this . . . nothing happened. Well, not “nothing” — my testimony did grow and I felt closer to the Lord than I ever had. But I still felt let down — why didn’t I merit a life-altering, veil-thinning sort of experience? Isn’t that my entitlement as a faithful seeker? In the many years since I left the MTC, I have often pondered the question, what do we do when we don’t receive the spiritual confirmation for which we are earnestly searching? For me, the answer has come from an unexpected, and positively mundane, source.

President Gordon B. Hinckley, the 15th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away today at the age of 97. He was a beloved president who had served as Prophet, Seer and Revelator since March 12, 1995. For more information please see the official announcement from the church here.

I’ve had this burning question for a long time (truth be told, I just re-read the P.D.P. post by Shawn L, and it inspired me to revisit this question): Does “priestcraft” exist in Mormon culture? If so, what qualifies as priestcraft? Is it the books or cds by Mormon authors that are being solicited to Mormons? Is it the endless trinkets with CTR or “Hold to the Rod” emblazoned across them? How about the jazzed up or even rocked out versions of primary classics such as “Give Said the Little Stream,” or “I Belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?” The “Forgotten Carols?” Read the rest of this entry »

One of the joys of operating a blog is getting a daily report telling us the search engine terms that people used to find our blog that day. So for example, if you typed “burning bosom” into Google, and then clicked the link to our blog on the results page, we know about it.

We are continually amused by the search engine terms that people use to find us–intentionally or unintentionally. Here are a few of my personal favorites from just last week. To be clear, these are words people typed into a search engine, like Google, to find our website: Read the rest of this entry »

A few days before Christmas I felt something missing inside: Christmas spirit. Amidst the hustle and bustle of buying presents for friends and family (and myself), I had this nagging feeling that I hadn’t done anything yet to help the less fortunate. So I figured if I could just do something for the needy, I’d get that Christmas spirit I wanted. I came up with an ingenious plan, or so I thought. Read the rest of this entry »

A confession: I’m a 100% bona fide Christmas nerd. For me, the season begins at 12:01 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving. By the end of that Friday, the tree will be up and boxes worth of decorations will be dispersed throughout Larsen Manor. But this year, an old favorite has given new a new perspective on the holidays. Read the rest of this entry »